Breakthrough: The Ideas That Changed the World

Polybius Square

Clip: Episode 6 | 1m 42s | Video has closed captioning.

Polybius, a Greek statesman and tutor to the Roman general, Scipio Africanus, sees that the Romans' method of signaling on the battlefield is limited to a small number of messages. He decides to invent a code so words can be exchanged between battalions freely. The result: the first long distance messaging system.